Are inductions of happiness and affirmation always desirable?

Popular interventions aimed at helping people often rely on positive inductions such as getting people to express positive affect (e.g., by smiling; Judge & Ilies, Reference Judge and Ilies2004; Lyubomirsky & Layous, Reference Lyubomirsky and Layous2013) and expressing their most important values (self-affirmation; Cohen et al., Reference Cohen, Garcia, Purdie-Vaughns, Apfel and Brzustoski2009; Walton & Wilson, Reference Walton and Wilson2018). The idea is that when people smile (Strack et al., Reference Strack, Martin and Stepper1988) or think of happy memories (Rusting & DeHart, Reference Rusting and DeHart2000; Sedikides & Skowronski, Reference Sedikides and Skowronski2020; Werner-Seidler & Moulds, Reference Werner-Seidler and Moulds2012) they feel good. Similarly, expressing important values allows people to feel good and protected (Ferrer & Cohen, Reference Ferrer and Cohen2019).

Unlike popular wisdom suggests (Wiseman, Reference Wiseman2012, Reference Wiseman2013), a close look at the science of persuasion reveals that these techniques can increase evaluation and well-being in some cases but decrease it in others. We argue that process-oriented research suggests that although most positive inductions produce the desired effects at least some of the time, in other cases the opposite effects can emerge. This argument is based on the idea that the effects of interventions depend on the psychological processes by which they operate (Petty & Briñol, Reference Petty, Briñol, Forgas, Crano and Fiedler2020). Briefly, the key idea is the impact of any variable depends on the amount and direction of thoughts people generate in response to the induction (Petty & Cacioppo, Reference Petty, Cacioppo and Berkowitz1986), and the perceived validity of those thoughts (i.e., whether people feel good about their thoughts or have confidence in their correctness; Briñol & Petty, Reference Briñol, Petty and Zanna2009).

For example, consider the multiple processes by which feeling happy can influence judgments and behaviors according to the Elaboration Likelihood Model (Petty & Briñol, Reference Petty and Briñol2015). Happy states can lead to good or bad outcomes depending on the circumstances. A happy state can lead to more positive evaluations when the emotion serves as a simple valence cue when people are not thinking much (e.g., if I feel good, I must like it), or by biasing thinking (making positive thoughts more accessible) when people are motivated and able to think, or even by serving as an argument (e.g., happiness can be seen as evidence that a joke is good). This positive effect is in accord with popular wisdom and much empirical research: feeling good is associated with seeing everything in a positive light regardless of whether you are engaged in low or high thinking (Forgas, Reference Forgas1995; Petty et al., Reference Petty, Schumann, Richman and Strathman1993). However, when the extent of thinking is not constrained to be low or high by other variables (e.g., high personal relevance), feeling happy could reduce processing of a cogent message thereby reducing its impact (Mackie & Worth, Reference Mackie and Worth1989; Schwarz & Clore, Reference Schwarz and Clore1983; Wegener et al., Reference Wegener, Petty and Smith1995).

Happiness can not only change the amount or direction of thinking (processes of primary cognition) but can also validate what people already think when the induction is salient after thoughts are generated. This mechanism of thought validation is a process of meta-cognition (secondary cognition) that involves thinking about our own thinking. Meta-cognition is important because secondary thoughts can magnify, attenuate, or even reverse the impact of primary cognitions (Briñol & DeMarree, Reference Briñol and DeMarree2012). Under high thinking conditions, feeling good following thinking can validate what we think increasing the impact of positive thoughts (making people feel especially good) compared to a sad state, but can also magnify the effects of negative thoughts (leading people to feel more poorly than in a sad state; Briñol, Petty, & Barden, Reference Briñol, Petty and Barden2007; Huntsinger et al., Reference Huntsinger, Isbell and Clore2014). Ironically, feeling good about a bad thought increases the chance that people act on that negative thought (e.g., Huntsinger, Reference Huntsinger2013; Paredes et al., Reference Paredes, Stavraki, Briñol and Petty2013). In sum, although happiness may often produce positive outcomes, the underlying process by which this occurs can vary, leading to negative outcomes depending on the circumstances. When happiness validates negative thoughts or when it reduces thinking about relevant information then happiness produces unwanted results.

As with happiness, self-affirmation can produce a good evaluation in some cases (e.g., when validating positive self-thoughts) but a bad evaluation in others (when validating negative self-thoughts; Briñol, Petty, Gallardo, et al., Reference Briñol, Petty and Barden2007). Thus, self-affirmation can polarize judgments when it follows thinking, thereby magnifying the impact of whatever dominant thought is accessible at the time (e.g., Keitman & Stankov, Reference Kleitman and Stankov2007; Mirels et al., Reference Mirels, Greblo and Dean2002; Vohs et al., Reference Vohs, Park and Schmeichel2013). For example, Wood et al., (Reference Wood, Perunovic and Lee2009) revealed that having participants express self-affirmations (e.g., “yes, I can” or “I am stronger everyday”) led to good outcomes for those with positive thoughts (individuals high in self-esteem), but to negative outcomes for those with negative thoughts (for those with low self-esteem; see, Baumeister, et al., Reference Baumeister, Campbell, Krueger and Vohs2003; Brummelman et al., Reference Brummelman, Thomaes, Overbeek, Orobio de Castro, van den Hout and Bushman2014, for additional examples).

In the most recent example of this category, Gallardo et al. (Reference Gallardo, Briñol, Petty, DeMarree and Pinto2020) demonstrated that the feeling of confidence that comes from self-affirmation can magnify whatever mental content is accessible in mind. In this set of experiments, participants were asked to think about the conflict they experienced after engaging in a counter-attitudinal behavior (negative thoughts), or about themselves (positive thoughts). Following this manipulation of thought direction, participants were assigned to either receive a self-affirmation or a self-doubt induction. As expected, self-affirmation had opposite effects depending on what thoughts were salient in a person’s mind. When people had positive thoughts, affirming an important part of the self led to a good outcome (e.g., less impact of conflict, and reduced cognitive dissonance). However, when people focused on the conflict experienced (a negative thought), the very same self-affirmation induction validated the conflict and led to opposite results. This finding is consistent with previous research showing that metacognitive confidence can paradoxically validate all kinds of negative thoughts, magnifying the impact of doubts, conflicting reactions, and psychological ambivalence (Clarkson et al., Reference Clarkson, Tormala and Rucker2008; Luttrell et al., Reference Luttrell, Petty and Briñol2016; Wichman, et al., Reference Wichman, Briñol, Petty, Rucker, Tormala and Weary2010). Taken together, these examples suggest that careful consideration of the thoughts that are likely to be validated by inductions of affirmation is critical for specifying when affirmation inductions are likely to work in the desired direction or to lead to undesired effects.

Similar to self-affirmation, research in self-efficacy (another variable associated with confidence) has also been found to improve positive outcomes (e.g., performance) in some cases (Bandura & Locke, Reference Bandura and Locke2003) but to hinder performance in other cases (e.g., Stone, Reference Stone1994; Vancouver & Kendall, Reference Vancouver and Kendall2006. The general idea is that positive interventions generally considered as sources of good outcomes can also lead to negative results depending on the underlying process by which they operate (Grant, & Schwartz, Reference Grant and Schwartz2011; Pierce & Aguinis, Reference Pierce and Aguinis2013).

In sum, careful consideration of the thoughts that are likely to be validated by inductions of happiness and affirmation is critical for specifying when these inductions are likely to work or to lead to boomerang effects. Although for illustrative purposes we focused our examples on happiness and affirmation, other positive inductions could be potentially analyzed from the same point of view, including approach behaviors (Price & Harmon-Jones, Reference Price and Harmon-Jones2016), touching (Jakubiak & Feeney, Reference Jakubiak and Feeney2017), laughing (Martin, Reference Martin2001; Provine, Reference Provine2004), and using nodding, mimicry, synchrony, and warmth (e.g., Arnold & Winkielman, Reference Arnold and Winkielman2020; Guyer et al., Reference Guyer, Briñol, Petty and Horcajo2019; Reich et al., Reference Reich, Berman, Dale and Levitt2014; Roscoe, Reference Roscoe2017, van der Wal & Kok, Reference van Der Wal and Kok2019). Next, we examine one of these possibilities as an additional illustration.

Is empowerment always desirable?

Beyond happiness and affirmation, popular interventions often rely on other positive inductions such as getting people to assume powerful postures (Huang et al., Reference Huang, Galinsky, Gruenfeld and Guillory2011; Huang & Aaker, Reference Huang and Aaker2019; Körner et al., Reference Körner, Petersen and Schütz2019), communicate using powerful language (Blankenship & Holtgraves, Reference Blankenship and Holtgraves2005; Klofstad, Reference Klofstad2016), as well as utilizing other expressions of power (Holland et al., Reference Holland, Wolf, Looser and Cuddy2017; Schubert, Reference Schubert2020). Indeed, some trends emphasize feeling powerful as a means of becoming more successful across different domains of life (Burgmer & Englich, Reference Burgmer and Englich2012; Lammers et al., Reference Lammers, Dubois, Rucker and Galinsky2013; Michalak, et al., Reference Michalak, Mischnat and Teismann2014; Nair et al., Reference Nair, Sagar, Sollers, Consedine and Broadbent2014; Peper et al., Reference Peper, Harvey, Mason and Lin2018). Rather than being inherently beneficial, persuasion science has revealed how the confidence that comes from feelings of power following thinking can magnify whatever mental content is accessible (Briñol, Petty, Durso, et al., Reference Briñol, Petty and Requero2017). For example, recent research has shown that feelings of confidence that come from power and other positive inductions can increase favorable self-evaluations (Briñol et al., Reference Briñol, Petty and Wagner2009; Carroll et al., Reference Carroll, Briñol, Petty and Ketchman2020) and physical performance (Horcajo et al., Reference Horcajo, Paredes, Higuero, Briñol and Petty2019) when people are thinking about their strengths, but decrease these self-evaluations and performance when they are thinking about their weaknesses.

The key point is that considering the direction and the validity of thoughts can be helpful in understanding apparently contradictory sets of results often obtained for power inductions. For example, power can increase or decrease cooperation or competition (DeMarree et al., Reference DeMarree, Briñol and Petty2014; Hirsh et al., Reference Hirsh, Galinsky and Zhong2011), pro or anti-social behavior (DeCelles et al., Reference DeCelles, DeRue, Margolis and Ceranic2012; DeMarree et al., Reference DeMarree, Loersch, Briñol, Petty, Payne and Rucker2012), and action or inaction (Durso et al., Reference Durso, Briñol and Petty2016), depending on whether the validated thoughts are positive or negative to begin with.

As noted, this is important because empowering people to take action plays a critical role in many interventions (Bailey et al., Reference Bailey, LaFrance and Dovidio2017; Hertwig & Grüne-Yanoff, Reference Hertwig and Grüne-Yanoff2017; Howell et al., Reference Howell, Miller, Lilly, Burlaka, Grogan-Kaylor and Graham-Bermann2015; Kim et al., Reference Kim, Beehr and Prewett2018; Jorm, Reference Jorm2012; Pratto, Reference Pratto2016). In sum, by attending to the underlying processes of change, researchers and practitioners can identity when feeling powerful is going to be beneficial and when it is going to be detrimental.

Can self-distancing backfire?

Other popular approaches have succeeded in getting people to self-distance when feelings were analyzed. For example, cueing people to analyze their negative past experiences from a self-distanced (vs. from a self-immersed) perspective makes a significant difference across a variety of health-related outcomes (Finkel et al., Reference Finkel, Slotter, Luchies, Walton and Gross2013; Kross & Ayduk, Reference Kross, Ayduk, Olson and Zanna2017). Many contemporary approaches are designed to help people avoid using their unwanted thoughts by separating from them (see Bernstein et al., Reference Bernstein, Hadash, Lichtash, Tanay, Shepherd and Fresco2015; Briñol et al., Reference Briñol, Paredes and Gandarillas2019, for recent reviews). For example, mindfulness techniques have found that separating from one’s thoughts can reduce the impact of unpleasant thoughts therefore increasing well-being (e.g., Hart et al., Reference Hart, Ivtzan and Hart2013; Kang et al., Reference Kang, Gruber and Gray2013; Lindsay et al., Reference Lindsay, Chin, Greco, Young, Brown, Wright, Smyth, Burkett and Creswell2018). Other research has shown that merely priming people with hygiene (e.g., by having participants wash their hands) is capable of mitigating the guilt associated with immoral decisions (Lee & Schwarz, Reference Lee and Schwarz2011). The question however, is to what extent distancing from thoughts is always beneficial?

According to our process-based analysis, creating distance from thoughts (either through perspective, mindfulness, cleansing, or other means) will decrease the use not only of negative thoughts (making people feel better) but also reduce the use of positive thoughts (making people feel worse; cf. Xu et al., Reference Xu, Zwick and Schwarz2012). In fact, research on self-persuasion has demonstrated that physical distance (Briñol et al., Reference Briñol, Gascó, Petty and Horcajo2013), and other forms of separation from one’s thoughts, can either increase or decrease positive outcomes (Gascó et al., Reference Gascó, Briñol, Santos, Petty and Horcajo2018; Paredes et al., Reference Paredes, Guyer, Briñol and Petty2019; Santos et al., Reference Santos, Briñol, Petty, Gascó, Gandarillas and Horcajo2019). Again, taking process into account contributes to maximizing the chances to get the desired outcomes with many interventions.

Is the meaning of positive variables always the same?

It is important to make an additional remark regarding how people interpret interventions. For most people in most situations, the variables involved in many popular interventions often have a common meaning. The question is to what extent smiling, affirmations, and power always have a clear and positive association? Notably, the meaning associated with these variables can vary across individuals, situations, and cultures. For example, smiling can not only be a positive sign but can also be a negative sign (e.g., when a smile is a smirk indicating laughing at, or trivializing an idea, or even when it reminds people they want to change their bad mood; Labroo et al., Reference Labroo, Mukhopadhyay and Dong2014; Söderkvist et al., Reference Söderkvist, Ohlén and Dimberg2018). Furthermore, positive emotions such as awe and hope are associated with pleasantness but also with other appraisals such as uncertainty, and those doubts can be selectively activated to dominate the situation (Briñol, Petty, Stavraki, et al., Reference Briñol, Petty, Santos and Mello2018; Lerner & Keltner, Reference Lerner and Keltner2001; Lerner et al., Reference Lerner, Li, Valdesolo and Kassam2015).

Just as positive emotions have different appraisals, other experiences can also be appraised differently (Briñol, Petty, Santos, et al., Reference Briñol, Petty, Santos and Mello2018). For example, feeling powerful often has a clear positive association (e.g., validity, authority, pleasantness; Galinsky et al., Reference Galinsky, Gruenfeld and Magee2003; Kifer et al., Reference Kifer, Heller, Perunovic and Galinsky2013). However, the experience of power can sometimes include appraisals of negative valence (e.g., power is bad when associated with corruption and abuse) and uncertainty (e.g., powerful people are sometimes wrong due to incompetence or carelessness), and an avoidance orientation (e.g., power can paralyze; Durso et al., Reference Durso, Briñol and Petty2016; see also, Cesario & Johnson, Reference Cesario and Johnson2018; Cesario & McDonald, Reference Cesario and McDonald2013; Lammers et al., Reference Lammers, Dubois, Rucker and Galinsky2017).

As is the case with feelings of power, the effect of ease is meaning dependent (Clarkson et al., Reference Clarkson, Otto, Hirt and Egan P2016; Labroo & Kim, Reference Labroo and Kim2009; Labroo & Pocheptsova, Reference Labroo and Pocheptsova2016; Unkelbach, Reference Unkelbach2006). People generally perceive ease (and other positive phenomenon, such as fluency, and flow) by default as something good and therefore associated with high validity and thought usage. However, Briñol et al. (Reference Briñol, Petty and Tormala2006) demonstrated that if these naïve theories regarding the meaning of ease vary (e.g., to indicate simplicity or stupidity), then ease can lead to the opposite outcomes (e.g., less thought usage).

The idea is that rather than being inherently beneficial, variables associated with confidence (like power, ease, etc.) can lead to positive outcomes in some cases but, also, lead to negative outcomes in other cases depending on how they are construed. As an additional example consider work on matching. Indeed, one of the most impactful methods for enhancing a persuasive proposal is to match an aspect of the proposal (i.e., its content, source) to an aspect of the person receiving it. This personalized matching in persuasion (also commonly known as tailoring, targeting, or personalizing) is universally thought to be beneficial. Against this popular view suggesting that “matching is always good”, Teeny et al. (Reference Teeny, Siev, Briñol and Pettyin press) have recently revealed that the effects of matching can vary as a function of meaning. That is, although matching and other fit experiences are often associated with positive meanings (e.g., rightness, familiarity, relevance, authenticity) and positive outcomes (e.g., more persuasion, satisfaction, etc.), they can also be perceived as attempts at manipulating, invasions of privacy, unfair calls, or boring approaches leading to negative outcomes.

Recent research demonstrates that even the meaning of “change” per se can vary to be associated with high validity (e.g., growth, improvement, and education) or low validity (vulnerability, flip-flopping, instability; Briñol et al., Reference Briñol, Rucker and Petty2015; Ford & Troy, Reference Ford and Troy2019; O’Keefe et al., Reference O’Keefe, Dweck and Walton2018). In sum, we argue that that it is the meaning of an experience and not the experience itself that matters for understanding whether a treatment produces the desired effect or backfires.

Can we make a deliberatively use of psychological interventions for self-change?

Another practical matter to consider is the question of whether interventions can be used deliberatively to produce changes in one’s own psychological processes. In other words, can people intentionally use physical actions such as smiling or power posing, and mental activities such as thinking about one’s values or positive memories, to improve their lives? The response to this question is two-fold.

On the one hand, many positive psychology initiatives that involve deliberative self-change have been proven useful in getting people to feel good (Seligman et al., Reference Seligman, Steen, Park and Peterson2005; Zhang et al., Reference Zhang, Kim, Brooks, Gino and Norton2014), especially when considered from a dialectical point of view that also includes recognition and acceptance of both positivity and negativity (Burkeman, Reference Burkeman2013; Lomas & Ivtzan, Reference Lomas and Ivtzan2015). Also, people can deliberately choose to experience a given emotion when they think that those emotions can help them to achieve a desired goal (e.g., Tamir & Ford, Reference Tamir and Ford2012). Furthermore, people can intentionally adjust their judgments to reduce (Wegener & Petty, Reference Wegener, Petty and Zanna1997; Mello et al., Reference Mello, Garcia-Marques, Briñol, Cancela and Petty2020) or enhance (e.g., McCaslin et al., Reference McCaslin, Petty and Wegener2010) the effect of any variable in the desired direction. Taken together, these examples suggest that people can deliberatively use psychological strategies designed to improve their well-being and other desired outcomes.

On the other hand, a different set of research paradigms suggest that the effects of many interventions (e.g., retrieving past memories of happiness) can be reduced or even eliminated when people become aware of their incidental nature (e.g., Schwarz & Clore, Reference Schwarz and Clore1983). Also, strategically thinking about emotional states can reduce their intensity and subsequent usage by reducing mystery (Wilson et al., Reference Wilson, Centerbar, Kermer and Gilbert2005) and increasing rumination (Lyubomirsky et al., Reference Lyubomirsky, Sousa and Dickerhoof2006). Therefore, it is not clear whether people can use their memories and actions to intentionally influence their feelings and evaluations, at least in all cases. Just as it is difficult to be happy when intentionally trying (Mauss et al., Reference Mauss, Tamir, Anderson and Savino2011; Schooler et al., Reference Schooler, Ariely, Lowenstein, Carrillo and Brocas2003), so too is it difficult to initiate and maintain enjoyable thoughts intentionally (Wilson et al., Reference Wilson, Westgate, Buttrick and Gilbert2019). Also, it is difficult to intentionally generate and express good memories while deliberatively avoiding bad ones (Gandarillas et al., Reference Gandarillas, Briñol, Petty and Díaz2018; Tormala et al., Reference Tormala, Falces, Briñol and Petty2007; Wegner et al., Reference Wegner, Erber and Zanakos1993). Finally, placebo expectations are less impactful when deliberatively choosing to use them to improve evaluations and well-being (e.g., Geers et al., Reference Geers, Briñol and Petty2019). Taken together, these examples suggest that the strategic use of psychological strategies to promote self-change can be more challenging than anticipated.